


Chorus To This History

by planet_plantagenet



Category: Henry V - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Historical References, Meta, Middle School, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 05:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12549700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/planet_plantagenet/pseuds/planet_plantagenet
Summary: The Chorus just wants to get his students interested in medieval history.





	Chorus To This History

“O, for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention,” muttered Mr. C under his breath as his classroom yet again erupted into a cacophony of indignant groaning.

“Henry the Fifth?” demanded one boy. “There are way too many Henries!”

“Henry IV was boring,” added another.

There was a general murmuring of agreement. One boy muttered something about how Henry Percy was the best Henry of them all. Another expressed his extreme dislike of Richard II. One wondered when they would get to Richard III— “He killed tons of people, right??  _ That's _ really cool.”

Mr. C, not for the first time, seriously questioned his decision to teach British medieval history to a group of twelve-year-olds.

“Is anyone else getting a red hot poker up their you-know-what?” inquired one girl in a way-too-nonchalant tone.

“I told you, that's just a legend,” explained Mr. C for perhaps the hundredth time, though by this point he was too tired to answer the question loud enough that it could be heard over the babble of students' voices.

Finally, the noise died down, and Mr. C let out a sigh. “What do you all remember about Henry V from last week?”

“He killed Henry Percy!” exclaimed the boy who had mentioned him earlier.

A girl in the back stuck her hand in the air. “I forgot who that is.”

“Hotspur,” said Mr. C. “And no. Henry V did not kill Hotspur. That's also a legend.”

“Is Henry V the one who had, like, fifteen wives?” asked a boy.

“No, that was Henry VIII. And he only had—”

“And he killed them all!!”

“Well—”

“Can we learn about Henry VIII instead?” cut in another student.

“Why don't you want to learn about Henry V??”

The question came out louder than Mr. C had intended, but it effectively quieted the classroom.

“He's boring,” one boy finally said.

“You don't know anything about him!”

“He did some stupid war in France and then died, right?”

“That's, uh, one way to put it—”

But just then, Elizabeth, the quietest student in the class, raised her hand. Mr. C immediately pointed at her.

“You used to be an actor, right?” was her question.

Mr. C frowned. “Yep. Why do you ask?”

“Couldn't you act it out for us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it doesn't seem like many people just want to hear the history. They want an interesting story.”

“The history  _ is _ an interesting story! Right?”

The students gazed back at him, their faces seeming to say,  _ If it was an interesting story, why would we be complaining so much? _

“Okay.” Mr. C, defeated, turned his attention back to Elizabeth. “So what exactly are you proposing? You want me to act out the story of Henry V?”

Elizabeth nodded. A few other students did the same.

“Uh… how?”

“You have to set the scene first.”

Mr. C simply stood there for a couple seconds. The idea was just a little bit ridiculous, and completely disregarded the lesson plan. But, to hell with it, he thought. If it helped these students learn history, it was worth it.

So he stood on a chair, and pronounced in the loudest, most melodramatic stage voice he could muster, “A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene!”

“Is that how they spoke back then?” piped up a kid in the front row of desks.

Mr. C briefly considered explaining that he was imitating Early Modern English, which came into being a little less than a hundred years after the reign of Henry V, but decided not to go into that. Beside, he didn't have a very good command of Middle English. “Sort of.”

“Keep going,” encouraged Elizabeth.

Right. He should probably introduce Henry V. “Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, assume the port of Mars—and at his heels, leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire crouch for employment.”

“Mars? Like the war god?” interrupted one of the boys.

“Yeah! Because Henry V went to war, right?” hissed another.

Elizabeth cut them off with a glare, and Mr. C continued, his confidence increasing with every line of improvised verse he uttered—

“But pardon, and gentles all, the flat unraised spirits that have dared on this unworthy scaffold to bring forth so great an object: can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France? Or may we cram within this wooden O”—he gestured to the circular shape of the classroom—“the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt?”

The students were quiet now. Obviously they didn't quite understand what he was saying, but the language was certainly enthralling.

“O, pardon!” cried Mr. C, stepping off his chair and grinning with delight. “Since a crooked figure may attest in little place a million—and let us, ciphers to this great accompt, on your imaginary forces work.”

He crossed the room, plucking two posters off the wall—one depicting the crest of the British medieval family the Plantagenets, and the other an infographic about medieval France.

“Suppose within the girdle of these walls are now confined two mighty monarchies, whose high upreared and abutting fronts the perilous narrow ocean parts asunder. Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts, into a thousand parts divide one man, and make imaginary puissance!”

So they were supposed to use their imaginations. This much the kids understood. Two mighty monarchies, France and England, about to be engaged in a monumental war.

“Think when we talk of horses, that you see them printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth, for 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings—carry them here and there, jumping o'er times, turning the accomplishment of many years into an hour-glass…”

Mr. C walked back to the front of the room, now positively beaming. The students’ eyes followed him eagerly.

“For the which supply,” he continued, stepping back onto the chair, “admit me Chorus to this history, who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray: gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play!”


End file.
